Chapter 3903: Worried Family

When Alex arrived back at his courtyard, he was surprised to see everyone patiently waiting for him in the hall, not a single one of them holding a relaxed expression.

The moment he walked in, their expressions changed, becoming even more complicated. There was relief, worry, confusion, and all other sorts of emotions that Alex couldn’t easily read.

"What’s going on?" he asked, looking around. "Did I miss something?"

"Son, you’re back," Graham said. "What’s the news? How soon before you have to fight the Celestial?"

Everyone seemed to hold their breath, waiting for this one piece of news.

It was at that moment that Alex realized Ronron must’ve told everyone about the Fire God’s arrival and Alex’s visit to the palace. And given everything they knew, the duel was supposed to take place right away.

That explained their worries.

"Well, I have some good news," Alex said with a slight smile. "The duel’s date has been set for 15 years from now. I have a while before I need to actually fight him."

"15 years," Helen said as her face fell. "That’s... not enough time. Is there any way you can win?"

Alex shook his head. "I’m going to do my best, but the only thing I’m confident in is the fact that I will live at the end of it. Senior Sunflare and the rest have made sure that, at the very least, the Fire God won’t kill me."

That made the group sigh in relief, but that didn’t mean much, as there were other ways to punish Alex.

Crippling him was one way.

Imprisoning him was another.

They couldn’t be as relieved as they wanted to be.

"15 years," Hannah said as she looked around. "What are you going to do during that time? Cultivate? I fear cultivation won’t help you much at all."

"I have the same feeling, but I’ll still cultivate. If nothing else, I want to reach the Immortal Spirit realm. Besides that, I will be training with someone to improve my sword skills, and I’ll be trying to learn another Dao. That’s all I think I can do."

"Do you have the resources to cultivate?" Hannah asked.

"No, I’ve long since run out," Alex said. "I’ll have to go out and see how much I can buy. Thankfully, I won’t need a lot more this time around."

"You can leave the palace?" Hannah asked. "I thought you weren’t allowed to."

"Since the Fire God has seen me now, I can go wherever I want. He’ll likely have someone tailing me during this time anyway," Alex said.

"Sounds annoying," Liz muttered from the side.

"When are you going?" Graham asked.

"I’m not sure. I’ll be training for a while, and I’ll have to wait around for the Artifact God’s message. I might leave after that," Alex said.

"Will it take two years?" Graham asked.

"Maybe. I can’t be entirely sure at this moment," Alex answered.

"If it does, you could come with us. Take some time to distract yourself from the future," Graham said.

"Where to?" Alex asked with raised eyebrows before thinking of something they had been mentioning for a while now. "Oh, that tournament thing?"

"Yeah. It’s taking place in 2 years. I was thinking of skipping it this time around, but since you are free, it might be a good distraction," he said. "Could also be a way to test your skills."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "I’m not opposed to it, but I don’t think my duel with the Fire God is going to exactly be a physical battle. If it was, I would lose right away."

"You said you were training your sword, right?" Long Huan spoke suddenly. "They’ve got separate tournaments for weapons alone too. There’s a Qi-based tournament, Body Cultivation tournament, Weapons tournament, Dao tournament, and a combination tournament where everything goes, including artifacts, pills, and formations."

Alex was slightly intrigued upon hearing all of that. "Sounds like a fun time, then. If it ends up happening after the Artifact God finishes my artifact, then I’ll happily join."

Graham smiled. "That would be nice."

Though the atmosphere had gotten slightly better than before, it quickly returned to being the same as everyone realized that what they had feared had only been delayed by 15 years at most.

At that point, the same fear they had felt just earlier would return in full force.

And while Alex had claimed that he would not die, there was no guarantee that the Fire God would keep his word. They understood, in essence, the anger that the Fire God had toward Alex for stealing what he believed to be his alone, so the consequences of that would have to be just as severe as well.

Alex left the hall and returned to his room, where he gave the information to Pearl and the rest as well.

Everyone but Whisker came out of his Soul Space, looking worried.

"What if we just left?" Scarlet asked. "The Sky God can take care of your family. You can just open a portal into the Void and go."

"Go where?" Alex asked. "I can only avoid dangerous zones inside the Void. I can’t actually navigate anywhere. If I tried, I would end up at some random location."

"Any location is better than this. You would be hiding."

Alex shook his head. "I appreciate you worrying about me, Scarlet, but I need to stay here. I would only be delaying the inevitable, so I need to fight."

Pearl listened to everything, slowly nodding along. "Would we be able to help you in any way? I’m close to reaching the Immortal Spirit realm too. I’ve already formed two of my Spirits. Just two more remain now, but they’re close too."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "You’re so far ahead of me, then. Which two?"

"Guardian Tiger and my Blood Essence," Pearl said. "The other two are taking time."

"I see. Well, I don’t think I will use you even if I could. You don’t exactly scream Yang and Fire, do you?"

"I do," Scarlet said. "So, what about me?"

"Umm..." Alex thought for a bit. "I could do something with you. Maybe not for the fight, but for optics alone."

Scarlet smiled. "I’ll help however I can."